I LOVE Dragonflies and Their Wings of Stained Glass

A blue dasher female dragonfly. Isn’t she beautiful? She’s eating aphids on the snapdragon plant. The top three were taken at my home here. I’ve seen more, but not that have settled for me to take a picture. I saw another baby dasher, but so tiny and it was flying, it was barely visible.

Green, Green Dragonfly–A green darner?

Lightened up the background a little so the dragonfly is easier to see against the cement slab.

whimsical background

Common Whitetail Skimmer–Male

I caught a shot of this dragonfly, but the puppies kept chasing him off, not seeing him, but wondering what I was trying to photograph. Do you see where his wings appear to disappear? They were transparent and the moss covered cement showed right through them.

Blue, blue dragonfly and the praying mantis

Duel between two large insect predators, both good, but deadly to each other.

Blue, Blue Dragonfly–Blue Dasher

Eating aphids on a crepe myrtle bush.

Dragonfly, Brown and Gold–Skimmer Female

On the brown and gold dragonfly, you can see the wood grain through her wings also. I caught this picture of her a couple of years ago.

Dragonfly with fine lines on transparent wings–Skimmer Female

And the brick through this dragonfly’s wings.

I thought this was the same dragonfly as I captured in the shot earlier. But the other has a blue tail.

Notice the shadow her wings create?

Whenever I see a dragonfly settle somewhere, I run in and hope by the time I retrieve my camera, he or she will still be waiting for me to have his or her picture taken. So the top female skinner was on a plant or rock, not sure, when I was watering my coneflowers and disturbed her. She settled on the rock nearby and I happily ran inside to get my camera (after I finished watering my plants), returned, and found she was still waiting patiently for me.

They are beautiful, eat the bad bugs, and are very much the part of a fairy garden. I keep seeing butterflies, but they won’t stop for pictures. *sigh*

Okay, I’ve written 10,000 words in the last couple of days, have 10,000 to go, and I need to proof A Very Jaguar Christmas, and write 3 promotional blogs. They’re due the 20th, the proof, the 29th, and the book, July 1st. So lots of deadlines, which means I shouldn’t be taking pictures of dragonflies, right? Nah….